What a beautiful movie!

That was an excellent one.

Really Surprised!

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

I've seen plenty, though certainly not the majority, of documentaries, and I must say Confessions of a Superhero is one of the most widely original to date. What other director tackles not just superheroes, but panhandlers posed as fantasy characters hanging around for a few bucks for a picture with tourists?Now, a premise can't sustain an entire feature, so luckily, Director Ogens kept up the decent pacing with the backgrounds, decent and sometimes laugh out loud dialogue and earnest people trying to make a living. In addition, the focus, the instrumental music and freeze frames were all effective and moved the "drama" through to the end. Ogens truly made you care if these people succeed or not.Though there are other characters out there, including Marilyn Monroe, Ghost Rider and a few Star Wars & Sesame Street tributes, the movie focuses on four main panhandlers: Superman (Dennis), Batman (Allen), Wonder Woman (Wenger) and The Hulk (McQueen.) I do hate using that word: panhandlers, even though that's how they categorized themselves. After watching this, I side with "Performers" or even "Street Performers." None of them are homeless, each have somewhat of a family – aside from Hulk, unfortunately for him and each make even more than me at times.During this well laid out journey, we get interviews with the subjects, of course, but a lot of their families and videos of their youths or adulthood, such as a marriage trip to Las Vegas. My personal favorite was a trip made to Metropolis, Illinois and that – sorry, spoiler – is basically the climax. Personally, I was wrapped up in the film, but I was thoroughly looking forward to that because, well…I've been there!Picture it: Tuesday, October 3, 1995 (I only remember the exact day, because it was the day of the first OJ Simpson verdict) East Peoria, Ill, me and my friend were visiting, and scouting out if we were going to move to Illinois, and we were getting ready to make the journey down south to the very, VERY southern tip of Illinois. We left the hotel late – again, everyone was in the lobby watching the verdict on the tele, but way unbeknownst to me how far this journey south would be, not to mention I got lost once.We didn't make it to Metropolis until late, like 6 or 7PM, it ended up as a 6 hour drive with the (Certainly no MapQuest/GPS in those days for normal folk) getting lost stint. Unfortunately, everything was pretty much closed. So we just wandered the town for a bit, I took plenty of pics with my cheap camera. Since this is my only, hopefully not forever, trip there since (15 years) I wish I had a better camera. And then we simply went back to the hotel in Peoria, Ill.Sorry to get off track, these are just as much as my blogs/journals as they are my reviews.Anyways…so Supe and his wife make it there following The ULTIMATE Superman, Christopher Reeve just passed on. There, they meet Margot Kidder – my #1 Lois Lane, and a few big surprises happen.Back to the LA streets, namely in front of Mann's Chinese Theatre, you'll dive into Wenger's story of yearning to be in the entertainment industry, or just plain acting. There's really no reason she shouldn't be; she's gorgeous and not only can she perform well – speaking mainly from her auditions, she can certainly act circles around a lot of the actresses I see in movies today, namely Kristen Stewart in Twilight.Also there's the "black" Hulk, or black under, McQueen who was homeless and worked his way up high enough to get the Hulk's job on the street. I only bring up black, because he does a few times.Finally the real stars of this documentary on these performer's journey for tips from tourists: Allen's Batman and Dennis's Superman. I'll begin with Allen. Seriously – this man was Batman, in and out. He's a martial artist, he's thoroughly angry and before they mentioned it in the movie, I noticed his uncanny resemblances to George Clooney – Movie Batman #3. This is his unfortunate downfall, as he didn't plan on donning a costume to spread his cape around strangers; he truly came to Hollywood to be an actor, only no one will hire a look-alike.Luckily, he has his wife and his anger to fall back on. But, he gets along with his rock, Dennis, who took him in and keeps him on solid ground, so to speak.And finally, Dennis…Say what you will, but damn! This guy looked so incredibly close to the late Reeve – the thin one. Like there's a Fat & Skinny Elvis, Reeve also had those phases. To boot, he's a huge Superman Fan – SO AM I, btw – and he's got his place covered, wall to wall with collectables. In addition, he takes his time thoroughly preparing for the street roll. He must use half a can of hairspray on that Superman Curl. All that, and he's got the lingo, the morals (out, when he's performing, that is) and dialogue down pat.I envy this guy. If I had half the balls as this guy's, I'd be out there too, all dressed up. Unfortunately for me, I'd be so caught up in character, literally trying to jump and fly, I'd forget I was there for tips.Ah-hem…anyways, this movie was very good. It's deep, but not too deep and just perfect for the subject matter. Sure, some of the drama was reached for, but it's forgivable since it wasn't over-the-top like the dumbass reality shows on TV. So…it's no "MTV's Real World: DC Universe."

Confessions of a Super Hero is a rather glum documentary with very little wiggle room to expand beyond its original premise of four misfits costuming themselves in super hero to make a living on Hollywood Boulevard. Talk about your boulevard of broken dreams. Confessions follows four (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Hulk) comic book hero impersonators as they make their daily appearances and delude themselves into thinking they have a future in the movie industry. Three of the four seem to be in serious denial (is this a prerequisite to going' Hollywood) as they hope to catapult to success with the flimsiest of chances by working for tips by posing with tourists on Vicki Lester's corner. It's a hopeless situation from the outset and the doc just kind of gloomily lies around reaffirming things for the last hour with our heroes and their faithful spouses fighting the heat, anger issues and union workers over a port a john before fading into the wallpaper. Director Matthew Ogens needlessly stretches out Super Hero by flogging it with jump cut filler and scenes in need of trim. It doesn't help that Superman and Batman may well be living in a parallel universe and seem less than forthright about their pasts which make for moments of uncomfortable, embarrassment. But Ogens does himself no favor by filming the fully costumed Batman in therapy admitting to murdering someone. It reeks along with much of Confessions of a Super Hero of false declaration that Ogens not only depends on but showcases resulting in it being more exploitive than revealing.

I gave this a seven stars simply because it entertained me. But know this, I am easily entertained. ;) To me, the only sympathetic individual was the "Hulk." He seemed to actually have integrity. I can't say anything negative about the guy at all. But I don't know these people, so I'm just relating what I got from the movie. "Superman" was a nice guy, although I'm not sure if I believe his claim about being that actress' son, especially since her entire family denies it. I think he may be delusional. The ultimate irony is that his wife is a psychiatrist, which only tells me psychiatry isn't about helping people to better themselves as much as it is about making people feel good about themselves, regardless of what they do. He seems harmless though."Wonder Woman" seems like the typical small town pretty girl. I'm sure all her life she was treated better than most in that little town simply because she is pretty, so what's the next logical step? Hollywood! But this girl has a lot of growing up to do. Hopefully she'll date someone longer than 2 weeks before she marries again. She also seemed pretty elitist in how she talked about her home town. I thought the dichotomy in her and her mother's explanation for leaving was humorous, in a sadistic way.Now we come to the crown jewel- nanananananananananana "Batman"! This dude is a scumbag, at least that's how they made him out. Pathological/habitual liar ftw! He wants people to think he was Special Forces and a black belt in several forms of martial arts. He then goes to some karate class and he can't keep up with BASIC stances or turns that a child can do on their first day. I mean, he does EVERY move wrong, and I'm talking about STANCES and TURNS, not even sparring. He also likes to talk about something he doesn't like to talk about (big indication he's a liar)- that he has a "body count." The moron brings his fantasy to a shrink who asks the begged for question- "Is this a confession?" To which he responds with nervous laughter. The best part was when the shrink says, "Were you arrested?" and he says, "UNFORTUNATELY, no." UNFORTUNATELY???!!! The shrink says, "There's no statute of limitations on murder" and then he gives some BS explanation about how "there's nothing" to connect him to it because it was in the '80's, and we all know that in the '80's you could get rid of evidence whereas "you can't do that now." Riiight. Another comedic gem is the News footage they show of his confrontation that leads to his arrest. His flamboyant "line in the sand" had me laughing out loud and I had to rewind and watch it again.All in all, if you're interested in seeing people suffering from different psychoses then this will definitely interest you. The "Hulk" seemed to be the only grounded individual and I wish him well in his movie career. To the others I say, good luck because they're definitely going to need it (although "Wonder Woman" could probably have a lucrative porn career...)

Wouldn't go out of my way to find this one...okay for late-night viewing if you channel-surf to it.I think Morgan Spurlock dresses up in the Superman suit in the telephone booth to introduce the film, but that also falls a bit flat.The characters and their stories just aren't that exceptional or interesting. The small-town history of the Wonder Woman character is a perfect example. Whether Christopher Dennis is really Sandy Dennis's son is somewhat interesting, but left unresolved.Also interesting is that Christopher Dennis certainly doesn't have the Superman physique. Margot Kidder mentions this in a roundabout way. He should wear a padded-suit-image a 98lb weakling instead! His obsession with Superman reminded me of another film called Cinemania (2002 Angela Christlieb) about NY city film obsessives.